The Hogfish 123 
the tail making three large baits, which were 
fastened upon the hook with soft copper wire or 
thread —a measure to outwit the small fry. I 
used a rod about eight and a half feet long, weigh- 
ing sixteen ounces, a reel which held three or four 
hundred feet of a number twelve line. The 
leader was three feet of very light but strong cop- 
per wire, with no sinker; the tackle was ex- 
actly what I used for the six and eight pound 
yellowtails, the only difference being that for the 
latter often a trout rod was employed. A larger 
hook was necessary for the hogfish, its enormous 
mouth rendering a very small hook inoperative. 
With a big net to hold the bait and to bag the 
game, and sometimes a pair of grains, the coral 
head was mounted and a cast thirty or forty feet 
made out into deeper water, where the bait could 
be seen white against the blue, sinking slowly 
into the forest of plumes and fans. Up rose a 
cloud of fishes to meet it. Now “breathe soft ye 
winds! ye waves, in silence sleep,” as attracted 
by the swarm of small fry that tosses the bait 
hither and yon, filling the water with flecks of 
white, comes a vision in red, a harlequin, or 
Mephistopheles of the sea, with flaunting plumes. 
It shoots ahead with a peculiar arrowlike flight, 
